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TCDG Faculty
“The teachers were cool and smart.”-Former Student
 
Russell Kirkscey is the speech and debate coach at Blanco High School. He holds a master’s degree in communication studies and is working on his doctoral dissertation in technical communication and rhetoric. His debaters have won nine UIL state championships and placed in medal rounds numerous other times. He has also coached state finalists and medalists in every UIL individual speaking event.

His leadership positions and awards include:
  • Director of the 4A UIL State CX Debate Tournament
  • UIL LD Debate Topic Committee
  • National Policy Debate Topic Wording Committee (Chair 2012)
  • President of the Texas Speech Communication Association
  • National Federation of High Schools Outstanding Speech/Theatre/Debate Educator Award
  • UIL Sponsor Excellence Award
 
Alex Pritchard is Director of Academic Affairs at the Austin Peace Academy in Austin, Texas. Alex's record speaks for itself. He is among the two or three most successful high school coaches in the past fifteen years. His teams have won two NFL National Championships and one national runner up. His teams have placed first at every major invitational in the United States, including the Heart of Texas Invitational at the St. Mark's School of Texas, the National Invitational at Harvard University, the Barkley Forum for High Schools at Emory University, and the Southern Bell Forum at Montgomery Bell Academy. Alex coached the winners of the 2000 edition of the prestigious Tournament of Champions (TOC) at the University of Kentucky, as well as the 2000 Glenbrooks Debate Tournament. He also has three runner-up finishes at the TOC. His teams have won the prestigious Texas Forensic Association State tournament six times. Alex has worked at the Zarefsky scholars for juniors and sophomores, the Coon Hardy institute, the NHSI institute, and the Iowa institute just to name a few. Alex has been inducted into the Tournament of Champions Hall of Fame and holds the honor of being a Key Coach at the Barkley Forum. Alex returns to The Championship Debate Group for his eighth summer.
 
Jana Riggins joined the University Interscholastic League in 1997 serving as State Director of Speech & Debate and assisting with the entire academic program. Prior to becoming a staff member, she taught speech and coached forensics in Texas public schools for twenty-one years, directing award-winning programs. She holds Bachelor and Masters degrees from Baylor University, where the Baylor faculty selected her Outstanding Woman in Speech In 1991, she was named one of the original recipients of the UIL-Denius Sponsor Excellence Award and commendation by The University of Texas in Austin College of Education with the Texas Excellence Award for Outstanding High School Teachers for bringing honor to the teaching profession and inspired dedication to students. Selected as Texas Speech Teacher of the Year, she is one of only forty-two educators in the state of Texas to be named a “Master Teacher” by the Commissioner and State Board of Education. Mrs. Riggins has served as President of the Texas Speech Communication Association, National Communication Association States Advisory Council, Chair of the TSCA High School Curriculum Committee along with other numerous leadership roles, and was selected to the Standards Development Committee for the State Board for Educator Certification.
 
 
 
Dylan Pearcy, Lincoln Douglas Institute Dylan Pearcy, currently coaching at Winston Churchill HS in San Antonio, has worked directly in some capacity with more than 75 UIL state qualifiers including champions in Lincoln-Douglas debate, policy debate and extemporaneous speaking. He has lectured on debate and extemp at UIL Student Activities Conferences and at the UIL summer Capital Conference. In only three years as a classroom teacher he has had more than a dozen students qualify for the UIL State Meet in events ranging from informative speaking to LD debate – winning the 3A state championship in policy debate in 2007, third place in informative speaking in 2007 and third place in 5A policy debate in 2009. In two years at The Championship Debate Group he has helped many students qualify for the NFL National Tournament and win numerous district, regional and state level LD medals including third place LD finishes at the 2008 4A UIL State Meet and the 2009 North East Texas Debate Association Championship. We are excited to welcome him to his third year as the lead LD debate teacher at The Championship Group.
 
 
 
Racy Grant is an Assistant Principal at Ferris High School and was formerly the speech and debate coach at Hallsville High School. During her 13 years coaching, her students accumulated 22 UIL state medals including 4A State Championships in CX debate (winning gold in 2009 and gold and silver in 2010), LD debate, and Speech/Debate team. She has coached state medalists in CX debate, LD debate, and extemporaneous speaking. Racy has been the director of several UIL district tournaments and has served on the UIL Regional Advisory Committee for years. She has qualified students to Nationals with the National Forensics League in Congress, CX debate, LD debate, PF debate, and extemporaneous speaking. Racy was a Texas delegate for the National CX Debate Topic Selection Committee where she wrote a topic paper in 2009 that was a national finalist. Racy serves regularly as a test question writer for the Texas Speech Teacher EXcET exam. She is a yearly presenter at the UIL Capitol Conference and the UIL Super Conference and has worked in the NFL Nationals Tab Room for three years.
 
Bryan Weber is the Direc­tor of the Hous­ton Urban Debate League (HUDL), a non-profit ini­tia­tive that works with pol­icy debate pro­grams in the Hous­ton Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict. He has been involved with speech and debate for the past 15 years as a stu­dent, critic, insti­tute instruc­tor, coach and admin­is­tra­tor. As a student at Blanco High School, he earned silver policy debate medals at consecutive state tournaments, was a state finalist in informative speaking and prose interpretation, and qualified for nationals in student congress. This year, HUDL policy teams finished at the Urban Debate National Championship among the top 16 and top 8 teams in the nation. He has co-authored two national C-X topic papers for the National Fed­er­a­tion of High School Asso­ci­a­tions, includ­ing the runner-up for the 2004-05 national topic. He holds a Mas­ters degree in Inter­na­tional Affairs from the George Bush School of Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Ser­vice at Texas A&M Uni­ver­sity and grad­u­ated summa cum laude in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from Abi­lene Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity with a cer­tifi­cate in Inter­na­tional Rela­tions and a minor in Philosophy.
 
 
Jason Jordan is currently a debate coach and doctoral student at the University of Utah. As the director of debate at Ranger College, he coached teams to NPTE first round bids and qualified multiple debaters for the college LD national tournament. He holds a master’s degree in communication studies. As a high school coach, he has previously coached UIL and TFA medalists, NDCA qualifiers, and NFL nationals elimination round participants in various debate events at Decatur and Richardson. As a high school competitor, Jason was a three-event, four-year UIL state qualifier at Bruceville-Eddy high school. In addition, Jason has presented scholarship internationally in the fields of communication and legal studies.
 
Samin Agha is the assistant forensics coach at Hendrickson High School in Pflugerville. He has coached five 5A UIL CX Debate State Champions, three Tournament of Champions (TOC) qualifiers, and several teams in out rounds at the TFA State Tournament. As a debater for the University of Texas, Samin qualified for the NDT and was in CEDA nationals elimination rounds. In high school, he was a TFA State Champion in foreign extemporaneous speaking, a four-time qualifier for TFA State, a TOC quarterfinalist in extemporaneous speaking, and a UIL State Quarterfinalist in CX Debate.
 
Barbara Ixba has been the Speech & Debate Coach at Lake Travis High School in Austin for the past eight years. She has coached thirteen UIL State Finalists in informative & persuasive speaking, prose & poetry interpretation, and Lincoln-Douglas Debate. In 2011 her students were UIL State Champions in both informative & persuasive speaking and took the 2011 UIL State Speech Team Sweepstakes. In 2012, she coached four UIL State Finalists in extemporaneous speaking events, and took second place Speech Team Sweepstakes. Barbara has had several students advance to NFL and TOC Nationals in extemporaneous speaking, including a 2011 finalist in foreign extemporaneous speaking at the NFL National Tournament. She has lectured on extemporaneous speaking and oral interpretation at UIL Student Activities Conferences and at the UIL Capital Conference. Barbara has also served on a UIL Regional Advisory Committee in 2011 and 2012 and as the Texas Speech Communication Association UIL Advisory Committee Chair in 2010 and 2013.
 
 
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